What began in June 2020 from observations of the passive voice in an Instagram caption and how, because of the passive voice, it did not “Tell the Full American Story,” is now a research-based education program and consulting service of wrkSHäp | kiloWatt, a Black woman-owned and operated historic preservation / heritage conservation and owner’s representation studio in New York.
(un)Redact the Facts editors evaluate the communication assets, such as reports, of client collaborators who enroll in the Pledge to (un)Redact the Facts through the lens of adherence to the Tenets of (un)Redaction.
Tenets of (un)Redaction
As of July 2025
The Tenets of (un)Redaction is a research-based, reparative narrative writing tool. Each Tenet is an offering to support healing from historical traumas, i.e., intergenerational traumas, by addressing narrative harm. Because the perpetrator(s), i.e., people who cause harm, often have more power and status than those they harm, people who communicate about historical traumas, i.e., history communicators, cause narrative harm when they center the “right to comfort” of the perpetrator(s) by:
1- Omitting the perpetrator(s), i.e, people who cause harm, from narratives that describe the harm they caused the recipient of the harm. When history communicators support this entitlement to comfort via narrative harm, they might do so to minimize the likelihood of the perpetrator(s) experiencing shame for the harm they caused. Yet, this practice of centering the “right to comfort” of people who cause harm might increase the feelings of shame and harm in the victims/survivors and their descendants, prolonging healing from intergenerational traumas for all parties involved.
2- Using language to minimize the harm the perpetrator(s) caused others
3- Omitting historical context from narratives about historical traumas
All of these examples of narrative harm support storytelling about the past that lacks accountability for the people who caused harm, and therefore, consequences for causing harm, i.e., their responsibility for supporting and implementing reparative action for causing harm that promotes healing for all parties. Research-based means that the Tenets of (un)Redaction is an evolving communication and harm reduction tool. Check back often, stay connected to (un)Redact the Facts for updates. And, take the Pledge to engage with the Tenets one-on-one with an (un)Redact the Facts editor.
-
Use the Active Voice instead of the Passive Voice.
Why: What is the narrative harm this Tenet attempts to repair?
The passive voice exonerates the perpetrator(s) of harm, removing any accountability from the perpetrator(s) by removing them from the sentence that describes the violent act/harm they committed. Therefore, in reparative narratives, the author identifies the person/people/institutions behind the violence in a sentence. Doing so reveals more facts, which in turn tell a fuller story.
-
Why: What is the narrative harm this Tenet attempts to repair?
Euphemisms minimize the impact of harm with flowery language. The word "plantation," when used in the context of chattel enslavement, tends to bring to mind a beautiful, palatial estate, instead of a setting for horrific violence and family separation, which was the reality for the enslaved Black and Indigenous people who worked at the sites of enslavement.
"Plantation" maintains the narrative perspective of the White enslavers, as a beautiful site, instead of the narrative perspective of the enslaved Black and Indigenous People as evidenced by the attempts by the enslaved to escape, to reunite with their loved ones, to live the free, autonomous life they knew they deserved to live. Euphemisms for White people, such as the "wealthy elite," insulate White people from accountability for the harm they caused Black people in narratives about chattel enslavement.
Use words that state facts clearly instead of obscuring violence + harm with flowery language.
Examples:
"forced labor camp" instead of the euphemism "plantation"
"White people" instead of the euphemistic phrase "the wealthy elite who enslaved Black people"
-
Why: What is the narrative harm this Tenet attempts to repair?
White is a racial category, yet often, people do not view it as such, which minimizes the harm that the existence of “White” as the dominant, powerful race or caste has in relationship to other non-White races.
Business/marketing/communications researchers have shown through their research on corporate branding and logos that the use of all lowercase letters, lowercase words like “white” in the context of race, fosters feelings like warmth, familiarity, and safety in the reader’s mind.
-
Why: What is the narrative harm this Tenet attempts to repair?
Despite the attempt to be inclusive with the words "enslaved people" and to emphasize the humanity of the people, Europeans/White people enslaved, "enslaved people" redacts facts of the historical period of chattel enslavement.
-
Why: What is the narrative harm this Tenet attempts to repair?
Omitting the word “White” as an adjective to describe a group of White people or a White person in sentences, aka the silent “White,” is very common in journalistic reporting and storytelling about the past.
Similar to Tenet 3, the silent “White” normalizes White people as the default person/people/human standard for comparison with non-White people.
-
Why: What is the narrative harm this Tenet attempts to repair?
Racism is a euphemism that does not get to the crux of what is behind the motives of White violence against Black people. It does not get to the motivation of non-White people when they enact violent acts against Black people—anti-Blackness, which is in support of pro-Whiteness. Systemic White Supremacy more aptly describes the variety of White violence and slanderous narratives about non-White people that White people have used to assert their belief in their supremacy above all races and minimize their competition for resources.
-
Why: What is the narrative harm this Tenet attempts to repair?
Chattel enslavement is when a person enslaves not only a woman but her children as well, and the enslavement is for a lifetime or until an enslaver or government frees a person from the forced, unpaid labor. Chattel enslavement more aptly describes the system of forced labor Europeans developed and supported specifically in the United States, with their trading of Africans and later trafficking of them, from 1619 to 1865.
Select Resources for Further Reading:
For Tenet 1: “Problems of Language in a Democratic State” by June Jordan
For Tenet 2: The 1619 Project: a New Origin Story (Chapter 1: Democracy) Created by Nikole Hannah-Jones
For Tenets 3 and 5: See Resources in “White with a Capital ‘W’ ” by k. kennedy Whiters
For Tenet 4: See “What’s in a Name?” by k. kennedy Whiters
For Tenets 2 and 6: Conceptualizing Racism: Breaking the Chains of Racially Accommodative Language by Noel A. Cazenave, PhD
For Tenet 7: See Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and Jon Stewart Talks White Resentment with Isabel Wilkerson
For all Tenets: Key Findings from Redacted: a Survey about Grammar + Language in Narratives about Historical Traumas (Version 1.0)
For all Tenets: A conversation with Dr. Alissa Ackerman about Restorative Justice by Proxy with Yowei Shaw
Clients + Collaborators
(un)Redact the Facts’ founder has shared the Tenets of (un)Redaction in lectures for graduate historic preservation programs, conference presentations, op-ed writing, podcast interviews, and in one-on-one consultations on equitable practices in historic preservation/heritage conservation.
Feedback
(un)Redact the Facts has influenced the way people communicate about historical traumas in the US and beyond.
